The present invention relates to sprayers useful in connection with faucets. More particularly it relates to sprayers having an on/off control and also a separate selector that can select between two different types of flow.
Sprayers are often used in connection with devices such as kitchen faucets. Some of these devices are mounted as a pull-out sprayer on the faucet itself. See e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,575,424 and 6,738,996.
Other sprayers, known as “side sprays”, are mounted separately from the faucet upper housing along a counter top, sink or the like, with a supply hose that ultimately links to the same mixing valve that supplies the faucet. The supply hose is usually a retractable and flexible hose that extends under the counter top.
When pulled out from its rest seat such a side spray is typically activated by a lever or other activator at the spray head, to permit water to flow to the sprayer. This causes a diverter to simultaneously cut off flow through the faucet's outlet spout. Such a side sprayer is often used to emit a spray for closely rinsing utensils or dishes in a sink, or rinsing particular portions of a human in a bathtub or the like. Side sprays achieve this without requiring the visible aesthetics of the faucet housing to be disrupted.
There have been a variety of attempts to provide varied flow options and controls activatable at spray heads themselves. See e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,145,114, 5,158,234, 5,383,604, 5,575,424, 5,690,312, 5,707,011, 5,797,011, 5,806,771, 5,937,905, 6,045,062, 6,145,757, 6,151,729, 6,296,011, 6,370,713, 6,691,933, 6,738,996, 6,935,375, 6,938,835, 7,000,854, 7,070,125, and 7,104,473. See also U.S. patent application publications 2005/0103895, 2005/0103896, 2005/0189438 and 2006/0016912.
Some such spray heads only provide control at the spray head between two types of flow (but not also volume control as volume control is left to the main faucet valve). It can be awkward for a consumer to be controlling both volume and type of flow at distinctly separately places. Other such spray heads only control on/off at the spray head, and provide no flexibility in spray type.
Still other such spray heads both provide on/off control and flow selection at the spray head. However, they do so in a non-intuitive manner, or require awkward hand manipulations to achieve such control, or default the flow to the on position (as they are intended to provide a pause function).
Accordingly, there is a need for improved sprayers having both on/off control and flow selection at the spray head itself.